Formatting dates in MySQL server query

This is an article on Formatting dates in MySQL server query in MySQL.

Introduction

Sometimes we need to get a formatted date while getting the date from a MySQL database using a SQL query. Fortunately, MySQL has an in-built function called DATE_FORMAT which will help us to acheive the same.

Code:

DATE_FORMAT(date,format)

What is what??

Here are the format specifiers and their description:

Code:

Specifier Description
=============================
%a Abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
%b Abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
%c Month, numeric (0..12)
%D Day of the month with English suffix (0th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...)
%d Day of the month, numeric (00..31)
%e Day of the month, numeric (0..31)
%f Microseconds (000000..999999)
%H Hour (00..23)
%h Hour (01..12)
%I Hour (01..12)
%i Minutes, numeric (00..59)
%j Day of year (001..366)
%k Hour (0..23)
%l Hour (1..12)
%M Month name (January..December)
%m Month, numeric (00..12)
%p AM or PM
%r Time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss followed by AM or PM)
%S Seconds (00..59)
%s Seconds (00..59)
%T Time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
%U Week (00..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week
%u Week (00..53), where Monday is the first day of the week
%V Week (01..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week; used with %X
%v Week (01..53), where Monday is the first day of the week; used with %x
%W Weekday name (Sunday..Saturday)
%w Day of the week (0=Sunday..6=Saturday)
%X Year for the week where Sunday is the first day of the week, numeric, 4 digits; used with %V
%x Year for the week, where Monday is the first day of the week, numeric, 4 digits; used with %v
%Y Year, numeric, 4 digits
%y Year, numeric, 2 digits
%% A literal `%'.